No doubt Fitzmaurice was encouraged in his seemingly desperate task by the hope of succour from France or Spain. The fear of losing their lands bound the Irish chiefs and nobles together, but that would not weigh one grain with any foreign potentate. The chiefs were doubtless with few exceptions Catholics, but that alone would not have tempted them to incur the penalties of treason any more than it tempted Protestants like Cecil or Perrott to conspire against Queen Mary. Sir Edmund Butler fought against Sir Peter Carew, but not against the Queen. The Desmonds and their allies fought against the St. Legers and Grenvilles and against their hereditary foes of the House of Ormonde. The O'Neills feared schemes of colonisation: if the Queen would let them alone they asked for no other sovereign. Purely Irish interests were sure to be sacrificed by France, Spain, and Rome; but Catholicism was an inheritance in which they all shared. [Sidenote: Catholics at Louvain.] Fitzmaurice therefore lost no opportunity of giving the struggle a religious character, and there were plenty of abuses in Ireland calculated to scandalise the devout as well as to give a handle to those who were actuated only by worldly motives. Irish priests at Louvain, often men of honesty and virtue, took care to tell English travellers that the Lord Deputy had one archbishopric and two bishoprics in farm, Cashel for 40_l._, the others for less; that the revenues of one see supported the grand falconer, and those of another the clerk of the kitchen--'sufficient parsons no doubt to have such cure of Irish souls as the English doctrine will permit them to have at this day.' The deanery of St. Patrick's was appropriated to the support of the Great Seal, much to the disgust of the Chancellor Weston, a pious and conscientious man, who saw the abuse clearly enough. The parsonage of Dungarvan was assigned for the maintenance of the Lord President. Laymen were appointed to ecclesiastical dignities. English Jesuits who found their way to Ireland could report these things on the Continent, adding that Sidney's gentleness did their cause more harm than any severity could have done.[196] [Sidenote: Foreign rumours.] Fitzmaurice was a sincere enthusiast, and no doubt he thought that the Queen's misdeeds and excommunication would bring about a crusade; but the days of Boniface were past, and little help was vouchsafed, though rumours filled the air. A messenger from Spain touched at Cork Beg at the mouth of Cork Harbour, where he left news for the seneschal, and then went on to join Fitzmaurice in the Aherlow woods. He reported that a great fleet was coming to Dingle. Some ships from Brest and Morlaix did visit that secluded haven, but only to carry off Fitzmaurice's son, who set quietly to work to seek recruits in Brittany. About thirty years before Peter Strozzi had proposed to make a Calais on some Irish island; this plan was now revived, but probably Delacroix reported against it.